the enoughness of being a fic writer

[poppyseedheart]

Every few months, I actively try to write something that I think people won't really want to read.



Sometimes it's a super obscure fandom or pairing, other times it's a trope (cough, mcd, cough, unrequited pining) that turns people off. No matter what it is, it's personal to me. It's something that matters in some dusty corner of my heart that hasn't gotten a lot of sunshine lately. Most recently, that story was the mechanics of writing a love song, a weird gen friendship fic that deals with potentially unrequited pining and unresolved tension between characters who have zero romantic interest in each other. 

I wrote love song in about 72 hours, give or take. It's not betaed. It has a funky little moodboard, and even as I posted the tweet about it I admitted that I had no idea how to pitch it. It's bleak and weird and not for everyone. It has under 100 kudos, and I don't anticipate it ever hitting that number considering the framing and subject matter—I'm the first to admit that that fic is kind of a bummer. It's also probably my favorite thing I've written in the last year.

I think there is an expectation in fandom (kpop specifically, but I see it elsewhere, and the more time we all spend fandoming on twitter the more I imagine it will spread) to give your fic the best possible shot at being seen and loved by as many people as possible. Pretty graphics, snappy posts with tagsets and/or summaries, developing a loyal following and flattening your twitter persona (or making a separate fic account) to avoid upsetting them or getting dogpiled for an innocent joke- it's a lot, huh?

Just over ten years ago, I posted my first fic onto fanfiction.net. My ff.net profile was my fannish social media. I eventually started cross-posting to tumblr when I could be bothered to, and my first few years on twitter were on a locked account (out of self-preservation, okay, the people I was writing rpf about were not people I wanted stumbling upon it) where I'd post "oh yeah, new fic, here's a link" and call it a day. I got comment emails from ao3, but I wasn't refreshing every thirty minutes the way I do now after posting a fic. I wasn't agonizing over whether to include a plot point that I thought might alienate readers. 

It makes me look back and think, god, what changed?

It's funny—I have almost 500 followers on my kpop twitter account now. It's not a huge number for a kpop twit, but it's more than I've ever had, and it's verging on more than I feel comfortable with. Not sure what to do with that! But it's where I'm at. To me, fandom is a coffee shop. Me and my friends and followers that I vibe with all hanging out and telling each other stories. People will come in and out, but we'll always have shared space and gotten to connect together. But more and more there's this pressure to perform—to write thing that people will enjoy, to follow up on promises I've made, to one-up myself and be better than I was before, or at least to never be worse. There is an implicit contract that comes with a following. That comes with subscribers on ao3 who get emailed every time I post, or even friends I've made specifically because they liked my fic and I don't want to disappoint them. It's a lot to hold emotionally!

No longer am I a little lone wolf writing fanfiction of questionable quality and posting it without a care in the world.

I care these days. I care a lot. It's hard sometimes for me to know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. More likely it's both.

The challenge I come up against most often is that the amount that I care often correllates with the way I value myself. As a writer, yeah, but as a person too. I've been guilty of self-effacing jokes like most of us probably have been—haha, but how will I know I'm loved if I don't produce content and receive subsequent validation for three days before the cycle begins anew and I feel obligated to produce content and receive subsequent validation for—

Kudos are awesome. Comments and QRTs and DMs are baller. I'm definitely not arguing any of that. And I think the idea that you have to write only for yourself is trite and false! But I think I am constantly striving for a definition of writing in community that doesn't hinge on numbers. If one person really loves a fic, connects with it, felt seen because of it— that can't be quantified against a hundred silent hits. It can't be compiled into a pretty milestone post.

I have a hypothesis, and it's that we are constantly rippling at each other. Not particularly groundbreaking, I know, but it helps me frame a lot of things.

I have tried, mostly successfully I think, to drastically reduce the amount of public self-flagellation I do about feeling like I am not producing enough fic. If I could be the kind of person who doesn't care about numbers or my own productivity, that would be sick! But I've always been goal-driven. Accomplishment-driven. When you're raised to value what you can do more than who you are as a person, it unfortunately comes naturally. But doing it in public made me feel better for about 30 seconds, and continued normalizing the idea that you are what you make to everyone who follows me.

This stuff is tricky! I haven't even touched monetization (a topic for another day maybe), and even then there is so much more I could say. There's nothing morally reprehensible about timing your fic post to reach followers in different time zones. Nothing wrong with lighting up at a comment. There isn't a right or a wrong here at all, really. 

But I know the kind of ripple I want to make. And if the people around me feel as though it's okay to do what you want and have fun and worry less about what the reception of their fic says about their inherent value, then I'll be happy. And if I can internalize those messages into the very core of myself, even better. I'll still care, but maybe I can care in a way that's easier on me.

That feels like enough.

Comments

[averytree]

I posted my first fic in 2013, then posted a further 10 fics between fall 2014-fall 2015 (my epic 1D series, which came in just shy of 100k) and then stopped writing fic all together until 2020. In those intervening years I was pretty sure I would never write fic again. I didn't have any ideas for it. I also basically stopped reading fic from 2016-2020, aside from just one or two fic authors I'm friends with IRL and poking at ao3 to find something to record for ITPE every winter. Returning to fandom, and joining fandom twitter and discords for the first time, something that felt new to me was how hustle culture/influencer culture seems to be bleeding into fandom. This is far from universal, and I wonder if it is more prevalent in fandoms based around RPF of celebrities/idols. Maybe people who are likely to be into idol RPF have been trained in being online all the time, and absorbed the messaging of the endless content that producing endless content is one of the things needed for success? I created moodboards for fics back in 2014, and I know people made banners and icons such for fics back on livejournal and older platforms. But I agree with you that the way people promote fic now feels different. It feels like some people see writing fic as a bit of a popularity contest, or see themselves as content creators first and authors second? I don't blame anyone for this. I love getting ao3 notification emails as much as the next person. And indeed, even in my years away from fandom, the occasional comment I would get would always brightened my day. But the content creator perspective on fandom work does seem to lead people very easily to the conclusion of, why not monetize? Youtubers, streamers, tiktoccers etc have patreons now, why not fic authors? I worry though that people who are monetizing fanworks will then end up having to treat it even more like a side-hustle than they did before. When someone is getting paid, perhaps even counting on the revenue of fanwork for a necessary portion of their income, then the pressure not to disappoint the audience must grow even stronger. I wish we didn't live under the kind of economy that drove people to this. I wish every writer and artist was free to pursue their odd passions, their whims, their strange beautiful little ideas which might please only a few. I'm glad that during my non-fic writing years I never worried about an audience which was missing me, or whom I'd left hanging, after years of not updating. I'm glad that when I started writing fic again it was a passion project, one I didn't have an audience in mind for aside from my co-writer. But as I get closer to actually posting chapter 1 of my new long story, have I found myself thinking about promotion? Absolutely. Like you, I keep reminding myself to try and keep the balance of letting myself find joy in kudos, comments and feedback, but also to remember that the real pleasure is in the creating of the work. I can want my stories to find an audience, while also holding on to the fact that if they do not, I am audience enough. Also I can promise you: the ripples you send out into fandom are valuable and good. I admire the attitude and approach you take to both writing and community building. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and care. And I love it when you post deeply personal experimental things. As a member of your audience, I am here for whatever moves you to write.

[poppyseedheart]

I think you've totally nailed one aspect I didn't really touch on much here, which is the deep ingrained influence of late stage capitalism and how fandom intersecting so much more with non-fandom spaces amplifies that allure and pressure around hustling. If you can profit, why shouldn't you? Fanartists have shops, why don't fic authors charge for their content too? But there's so much tangled up there. Maybe my idea of fandom as a space where we can resist hustle is privileged in itself.

I really appreciate you sharing all of this, and I love what you said about being audience enough yourself. Maybe if we treasure ourselves too as people who deserve to find joy in our creations, the road ahead won't feel quite so fraught. I think a lot about what it means to hold my own hand through the hard parts. It feels like something of a gift to connect that to fandom too.

<3

[minnarr]

ah, this is very good. and i think like... it's such a struggle to resist the lure of numbers and engagement affecting how you feel about your fic. I'm also with you in that some of my favorite fic I write ends up with some of the least attention & I think I actually use that as a bulwark against letting quantity rule how I feel about writing. Like it's a bummer that you can spend months on a thing and few people are interested in it compared to a thing you wrote in like a day and don't much like, but it's also like...a good reminder that fic can be good even if it doesn't have a large audience, that it's satisfying to do the thing you wanted to do. (Which I do often flatten into the idea of "writing for yourself" bc primarily...I want to be writing things I enjoy and feel proud of).

[poppyseedheart]

yes yes yes! totally agree. i think functioning as a supportive audience to yourself is a hugely important part of writing that isn't really talked about enough because like you said the advice is just "write for yourself"—but not so much about how to be a satisfying reader to write for. it doesn't just happen, and i like the idea of being able to put work into improving as your own audience!